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A Ass Pocket of Whiskey LP

Reissue! "Ass Pocket o' Whiskey" features bluesman Burnside backed by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Born in 1926 in Coldwater, Mississippi, R.L. Burnside was a contemporary and protégé of the great Mississippi Fred McDowell, the bluesman famous for his statement "I do not play no rock & roll." Burnside, on the other hand, did and does on the surprisingly wonderful "A Ass Pocket o' Whiskey." Burnside is backed here by the punk-influenced avant-blues noisemongers, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The combination is more credible than some blues purists might imagine. Burnside's distinctively gritty modal blues were an acknowledged influence on Captain Beefheart, and many of these 10 tracks recall nothing quite so much as the Captain's distinctively wild blues experiments -- with Spencer's aggro-skronk guitar noises standing in for the Magic Band. Blues classics like John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen" and the '40s broadside "Tojo Told Hitler" sound just fine next to Burnside's idiosyncratic originals.